in washington. you know, politicians do favors for donors. if it was just that, i don't think we would be really talking about senator menendez. it's this allegation that's upping the ante with prostitutes and teenage sex that's getting all the buzz, and oh, by the way, he's also trying to help out with this business deal down there. >> and let me add -- >> i wanted to say, melanie, you point out that this story, this whole issue, really offers all of us a window into how washington really works. how so? >> well, it's so frequent that politicians are doing huge favors for their biggest donors. this is in fact why we have an earmark ban, because there was such a problem with appropriators using appropriations to give gifts to their biggest donors. here we have new ways members of congress are finding to influence their donors, and we also have senator menendez reaching out to health and human services when there was a medicare problem that this melgen was facing, and he's under fbi investigation for